Episodes: Masonry

This week Google Assistant had several updates important enough to make it to my notes for episodes. Let’s start reviewing them. Monetization First, monetization, just a week after Amazon announced consumables API for Alexa Google released the ability to sell digital goods, a way for Action creators to offer digital subscriptions and goods to consumers....

﻿ The University of Adelaide built a chatbot to solve the dreading problem of thousands and thousands of students receiving their Admission Rank on the same day. The chatbot was built using only Oracle Autonomous Mobile Cloud Enterprise, a sheet with the formulas for the calculations for the admission rank and a list of high...

Voice Assistants have been at the forefront of parents almost since the beginning. From a kid who prayed to Alexa, to parents wanting the assistant to request thank you, prompting a response from Amazon. The latest update to Alexa address though questions saving parents difficult conversations with their kids (This is, of course, an overstatement)....

Amazon announced yesterday that developers will be able to start a request in one skill, then have it fulfilled in another. The feature is officially called Skills Connections and is in Preview. As part of the blog post announcement Amazon outlined examples of connections available like printing by HP and schedule a reservation by OpenTable...

Will.i.am backed startup presented Omega, their smart assistant at the recently finished Dreamforce conference. Omega is set to compete with Alexa and Google Assistant although heavy geared towards music fans: in the presentation the assistant was shown playing tracks at request, before providing information about the artist playing and any upcoming gigs or live performances....

Last week or earlier this week, the creator of the World Wide Web, Sir Tim Berners Lee presented a project he has been working on in stealth mode: Solid, an open source project according to its author: “with the goal to restore the power and agency of individuals on the web”, is based in Linked...

Amazon’s Alexa is getting smarter about sports — Just in time for the NFL season, Amazon has been stuffing Alexa full of sports knowledge. It can tell you the odds of the next NFL game and give you an update on your favorite teams. In the near future, Alexa will be able to give fantasy...

The same week Salesforce announced their Einstein voice assistant ahead of their annual gathering Dreamforce, Microsoft launched Cortana Skills Kit for the Enterprise for developers, to help businesses create custom voice apps for their employees and users, at Ignite, their annual gathering. This was expected, given the company strong stance on the enterprise. I have...

I’m very passionate about the process of software development and how it affects the product cycle. I read a blog post about people with physical disabilities using voice tools to program, so I was excited when found this article about the influence of voice technology in software development. Let’s see some of the ways software...

APK insights report that the latest beta of the Google app is rolling out this morning with a hint at the Pixel Stand. Other tweaks in version 8.22 include a new Sound Search widget, auto-downloading for Podcasts, and detailing the Assistant Household feature. Let’s see the changes for the Assistant app. Google Assistant Household As part of...

﻿ Happy Thursday! Today is newsletter day! Every Thursday at 9:50 Pacific Time, our weekly issue is sent to your inbox. It’s filled with my commentaries of the best of the week and stuff I find interesting even if it didn’t make mainstream media in conversational interfaces, voice technologies and voice strategy and branding. If...

From all the voice platforms out there Amazon Alexa is the one offering more monetization options for creators. Even if these options are still limited, there are reports by several successful skills that are doing ok. No one seem to be the next Facebook, Insta or Uber just yet. As far I know, Google Assistant...